Project Background Problem Statements

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Project Background

Solar energy or photovoltaic energy PV energy is a very popular alternative power nowadays due to its renewable and free features. It is also used to generate and supply the electricity for commercial or residential usage. Due to the ever-increasing of the fossil fuel or gas price, other payment charges have also been affected such as the payment charges for electricity. Therefore, a lot of the researches have been conducted in order to develop other sources of energy that can replace the fossil fuel or gas. The photovoltaic energy is a form of solar energy which is considered as one of the alternative to produce energy. Because the solar panel that made up from the solar cells, the solar panels have the ability in converting the sunlight to electrical energy. The performance of the solar cells in producing the electricity depends on the angle of the prevalence of the sunlight. It can be received well when the sunlight is perpendicular to the solar cells. However, the available solar cells today have its position fixed. It should moves within time to increase the efficiency of the solar cells in producing electricity. Therefore, this project will develop a simple solar tracker system which has been designed as the one way to improve its efficiency. This project consists of software and hardware implementation. It is divided into two parts which are mechanical parts and electrical parts. Both of the parts have been designed by considering the cost, performance, maintainability and capability.

1.2 Problem Statements

The performance of the solar system is based on the amount of the electricity that it can produce. The direction of the sunlight is not at stationary but it will move from time to time, depending on the movement of the sun. Mostly, the existed solar panel nowadays are install securely which means it is static and failed follow the movement of the sun. The performance of the solar panel is not impressive because it produces low output power. The output power will increase when the solar panel is perpendicular with the position of the sun. In order to improve the performance of the solar panel, solar tracker that uses the technology of sensor has been designed and sold in the market. However, the cost for the system is too high causing most of the people cannot afford the solar tracker system.

1.3 Objectives of the project